[JohnTHaller]

Hotel taxes support infrastructure and city services. And things like proper safety and fire regulations in hotels ensure that guests know where fire exits are, that fire extinguishers are available and operational, that smoke detectors are present in the proper locations and functioning, etc. All of those things cost money. AirBnB offers none of those things. It took a string of deadly hotel fires in the 70s to get regulation up to speed. I wonder what it will take with the illegal hotel rental market.

[coding123]

I'm not coming from any experience in this comment, but I'm wondering if AirBNB rentals will ever have such extra regulation since there are no long-hotel hallways, no fire-escapes, elevators, etc... simply because these are already residences - are we to suggest we need normal homes to be safer than they already are? If these places are "unsafe" in this regard, shouldn't it be improved whether or not they are being rented on a nightly basis?

[digitaltrees]

Law usually needs to be tailor to the specific facts of a situation. Here there is a clear difference in a building being used as a residence with a small and consistent set of people using it as opposed to a much higher volume of guests using it for a business purpose. Just think about the increased risk of accidents, fire, or crime introduced as multiple guests stay in a space: they will increase the risk of crime by bringing valuables in rotating shifts, increased risk of fire as some guests will smoke or bring faulty electronic devices; I could go on, but the point seems clear. Higher traffic use results in greater risk. These factual differences should be taken into account when writing an insurance contract (a form of "law") or regulation (also a form of "law").

[JohnTHaller]

You're in an unfamiliar place and a fire breaks out. If there are no working smoke detectors and you're asleep, you'll probably die. You're making a meal on a stove and you accidentally start a fire. Is there a fire extinguisher... anywhere? If there is, is it even working? If there's a fire and it's smokey and your main route of exit is cut off, do you know how to get out a back way? Is there even a back way? Nobody is checking for these things when you rent an unregulated room from a random stranger on the internet.

If you own your own place and are lax in your upkeep, fire prevention, fire detection, and safety measures, it's likely you who will pay the price. If you're renting your place out as an illegal hotel, you're affecting unsuspecting guests.

[NSAID]

My wife and are getting licensed for foster care, and this week I'm installing several smoke detectors and CO detectors. We're required to have a minimum of one CO and smoke detector per floor, and an additional smoke detector in each bedroom.

Was our house acceptably safe without those? Probably.

Is it going to be better now? Certainly. It's a bit of work installing 7+ devices, but I understand that we've reduced a lot of risk.

Same thing with the fire extinguishers and other safety equipment we'll have to pick up.

Rental units here have somewhat similar requirements, and I think short-term rentals should have similar safety features.

[EdHominem]

That's probably just changes in the regs since the house was built, not that foster children (or tourists in the case of a hotel) are more fragile than others.

Good standards are good, double standards are not.

[NSAID]

Right, but my view is that certain "qualifying events" should trigger public interest requirements for more safety.

Buying a house? Make sure stuff is up to code, get an inspector, but it's on you.

Housing kids for the state? There's a public interest in making sure they're safe.

Renting out a room or building? Safe thing (and there are already regulations here that are stricter than those applying to private he owners)

Renting out a room or house short term? Again, same thing. This should at least be the same as a long term rental.

EDIT: anyway, my original point was that there is precedence for safety regs even if you don't have long hallways or tall buildings.

[rhizome]

Fire escapes aren't required merely to look cool, they provide a second form of egress from a hotel room in the event of e.g. a fire, which is a common requirement and not relevant to houses which will have other forms of secondary egress. Even so, my non-hotel apartment has a fire escape because the hallway through the front door is the only other path out of the building.

[wyager]

> Hotel taxes support infrastructure and city services.

As a tourist, there's no reason I should have to provide an inordinate level of support to the regional regulators. I'm happy to pay sales tax like everyone else, and the costs of property and utility taxes are already built into the cost of my stay.

> And things like proper safety and fire regulations

Residences already have to obey regional safety and fire code.

> All of those things cost money.

That's true, but you're already paying for that in an AirBnB, because as I said, it also has to follow regional fire code.

You seem to be under the false but unfortunately common impression that all, or even the majority, of regulations have anything to do with improving consumer safety.

> It took a string of deadly hotel fires in the 70s to get regulation up to speed.

The false premise here is that residential building code is not already "up to speed".

[JohnTHaller]

> As a tourist, there's no reason I should have to provide an inordinate level of support to the regional regulators. I'm happy to pay sales tax like everyone else, and the costs of property and utility taxes are already built into the cost of my stay.

I support our local infrastructure via my income tax as well as my property taxes in addition to my sales tax. You don't pay income tax, so you are charged the latter.

> Residences already have to obey regional safety and fire code.

They obey basic building codes. They may not have working smoke detectors or fire extinguishers. Secondary exits may easily be blocked by storage, furniture, etc.

> That's true, but you're already paying for that in an AirBnB, because as I said, it also has to follow regional fire code.

Nope, it doesn't. AirBnB rentals are unregulated and have none of the fire safety mechanisms or inspections of licensed hotels.

> You seem to be under the false but unfortunately common impression that all, or even the majority, of regulations have anything to do with improving consumer safety.

You seem to be under the incorrect assumption that these regulations weren't implemented specifically because hundreds of folks in the 70s were killed in hotel fires because they were unregulated.

> The false premise here is that residential building code is not already "up to speed".

A building code that a structure was built to decades before has less bearing on how safe that dwelling is today without smoke detectors, working fire extinguishers, marked exits, available secondary exits, etc than you seem to think it does.

Remember, just because you're responsible and have a working smoke detector, CO detector, and fire extinguisher as well as secondary exits that are easily accessible doesn't have any bearing on the random stranger you rent from on AirBnB. They may just not care and you'll be none the wiser.

[EdHominem]

> Hotel taxes support infrastructure and city services.

So restaurants that don't charge the extra foreigner-tax are destroying the city infrastructure? Or are their regular taxes expected to cover it?

Why not with hotels? Why can't they simply be assessed the real cost of supporting their usage?

If there was a cost associated with hosting an out-of-town guest, why is it a percentage of the room rate? Of course, the answer is "because it can be." Takers gotta take.

> Hotel taxes [also support ...] things like proper safety and fire regulations in hotels ensure that guests know where fire exits are, that fire extinguishers are available and operational, that smoke detectors are present in the proper locations and functioning, etc.

No. The room rates support that. The hotel doesn't keep the taxes so none of the taxes go to helping make the hotel safer.

> AirBnB offers none of those things.

Neither do a newspaper's classified ads.

Whose laws should they support? The guests? The hosts? The country the servers are in?

Should the newspaper have a similar burden? If I sell a car should they have to inspect the car first to make sure I'm not trying to pass off a lemon?

[JohnTHaller]

Hotel taxes go to support things like inspections that ensure things like exit signs, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, CO detectors, secondary exits, etc are all up to code on a regular basis.

[EdHominem]

Which should be paid for by the hotels and reflected in the room rates, not hidden in tax.

I'm also sure it doesn't cost $45 per room night to inspect a hotel room in SF, so the tax is out of proportion. Which is expected because the people it impacts don't have representation to change it.

And to the degree they can avoid it, it is only by the broad brush of avoiding the city entirely which has negative effects on merchants in business which don't unload their costs onto others.